Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1887-08-18
A BAG WITH HOLES.

DOdIu having ultd1S, ds
the neighbors said.
What the Potters would have done
without her board to help them they
could not think-now they had it. Yet
before Mrs. Potter's Uncle Ebenezer
died they had lived just as many other
poor people live. Uncle Ebenezer had
never helped his niece at all since he
gave her modest outfit and a hun
dred dollars in cash when she married
Rowley Potter, young fellow who
was getting good wages i'll the great
rifle factory at Ill.
Louisa was pretty, capable, bright
girl then; but that was twenty years
ago. Now she was a thin, sallow,
fretful woman. Potter still worked in
the ''rifie shop" as they called it, but
he had only ST day more wages than
when he was married, and there were
four children. Lofty, IS years old,
pretty, pert and vain, worked in a
hosiery. Tom, 16, was in nut and
bolt ''shop;" Idalla, a girl of IA. was a
''cash girl" in Holmes & Harper's
great dry-goods store. Tom and Lofty
paid their board, ''Idy" clothed her
self, she could get bargains and rem
nants SO cheap; when she should be
promoted into ''sales lady" she, too,
would pay like the others. The fourth
child, little Dayy, was only 10; he went
to public school.
When Aunt Pratt was left widow,
she made up her mind to sell the farm
and board somewhere; she had no
children, but she did have rheumatism
nnnnorh tn fira haI, th &c IL
stiffness more than a family of the
noisiest boys and girls could have tired
her. The farm was q good one, well
improved, the house and barns in
thorough repair, and there were six
cows and two horses, as well as plenty
of farming implements. She got $4,-
500 for the whole. The neighbors said
it was worth more; the buyer said it
was worth less; so shreWd Aunt Pratt
considered the price fair.
Then there was 81 800 in the Dalton
Bank, the slow accumulation of butter
money, egg money, the sale of poultry
and calves; $4,000 in all, and every
cent of it her own. Squire Hart, of
Dalton, who was executor of the will,
invested the money in safe ways at
per cent. and Mrs. Pratt began to look
about her for home. She knew that
Louisa Potter had felt hurt about her
Uncle Pratt's will; he only left to her
her grandmother's mahogany furniture
and the savings bank book in which
he had deposited the profits made out
of the Friesland hens and the white
heifer calf she had left in his hands
when she married-a sum amounting
to 800 now.
But Louisa and her hus; md had ex-
pected more, and Mrs. Pratt was a
just woman, capable of understanding
other peoples feelings; so she did not
wonder. After much thought. and
without any suggestion from them,
she proposed to come into Ii. and
board with Louisa. SO th Y gave up
to her Lotty's front bed room, and put
Lofty in with Ida; and as they cooked
and ate in the same room where they
sat at evening, Aunt Pratt's rocker,
her fOot-stOol, her small round table
and her work-basket were established
in the sunny south window, where she
could look down into the street and up
into the sky; for this tenement was on
a corner, and the Potters had the third
story flat.
1t was a great change for Aunt
Pratt, but she was woman brought
up in the old New England fashion, to
do what she perceived to be a duty,
however unpleasant and painful, with
out shrinking or complaint; and she
had made up her mind that it was her
duty to help the Potters.
She missed the fresh air of the farm,
the quiet of her own house, the new
milk, the sweet butter, the good bread;
but she said nothing as she sat, day
after day, IL her window knitting or
mending, her big bible open on the
stand, and her thoughts very busy with
the things around her, as well us with
the things that are above. For Aunt
Pratt had made resolution to leave
her money in the way it would do her
relatives the most good, and she must
study them and their customs before
she could discover what that way was.
She soon found out that they were al
ways in debt. Potter had good wages.
Lofty and Tom were off his hands, Ida
had only her board given her. and
Davy was inheritor to Toms old
clothes and his fathers, too. 1t seemed
to Aunt Pratt that there must be a leak
somewhere that SHE did not discover
at once.
She was reading her bible of course,
and one day came upon verse in the
prophecy of Haggai that seemed to eN-
plain the situation to her, and opened
her eyes. The next day Lofty came in
shivering; she had caught a severe cold
and huddled over the cook-stove
wrapped in an old shawl, coughed and
sighed and scolded all day, til she was
too hoarse to speak.
''Have you got on your winter fam
nels?" asked Aunt Pratt, for it was now
November.
'Flannels? l guess not. I haven
got any"
why, Lofty"
''Well, poor folks can't have every
thing. I'd got to have a winter suit,
and there was such a lovely. one. at the